


You haven't changed at all

by Zenyo



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6204580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zenyo/pseuds/Zenyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Munakata Reisi had thought he could handle it. "It" being Suoh Mikoto, the troublemaker he had once shared a friendship with. Mikoto, who Reisi had fallen in love with six years ago. A child's love. Nothing more. Nothing real.<br/>Besides, Reisi had moved on, so having him visit the school Reisi attended shouldn't cause any problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so please let me know if you like it!  
> Also, english is my third language, so I apologize for any and all mistakes. Feel free to let me know if you find any, so i can correct them :-)  
> Anyways, enjoy!

It was Monday, Feburary 7th, 2005. Munakata Reisi was at this point sixteen years old. He attended a special type of boarding school, much akin to the kind found within the borders of Denmark. In short: He lived there, and had done so since he finished junior high two years ago. Of course, he would return home in holidays and most weekends, but otherwise he rarely left school grounds and preffered to stay indoors when the weather turned less than enjoyable.

Unfortunately, due to the arrivals of the students of Aka High, who were visiting to get a look on a different type of school, Reisi was now outside. Originally the plan was that the entire school greeted the arrivals, but since it started raining, the head master decided to only bring out the “important people”.

Because he had attended the same elementary school as three of them and used to be somewhat friends with them, as well as being head of the student council, the headmaster had decided that he was in fact one of those “important people”. Thusly, he was now fighting the urge to move around in order to keep from turning into a popsicle in Japan’s cold winter rain.

Surprisingly, the source of his irritation was not the weather alone, but also a certain red haired teenager whose uninterested drawl he hadn’t heard since they parted ways the last day of elementary school. No, even before then. The week before that? Or was it a month? He didn’t recall anylonger, however the lazy tone and different accented huffs of air the redhead used as communication was still fresh in Reisi’s memory.

He glanced at the watch on above the school’s main entrance for the hundred and seventh time that day. They were late.

He almost didn’t manage to finish the thought, before a colorful bus appeared down the road.

“Ah, here they are!” Reisi sighed at his headmaster’s cheery voice, but followed the middleaged man towards the now parked bus.

Another reaon for Reisi to be one of the “important people” was the fact that was his past relationship with Suoh Mikoto. When they started in elementary school, Reisi had been an easy target for bullies. Mikoto had been the problem child who skipped school and terrorized the teachers. Mikoto had always hated bullies and had taken it on himself to protect the nerdy kid. As they became friends, Mikoto seemed to calm down. Reisi assumed that he hadn’t wanted to leave Reisi alone at any time, so he attended all his classes. While he still didn’t do much of his homework, he stopped messing with the teachers when he realized it made Reisi uncomfortable.

At the beginning of the fourth year of elementary school, a boy named Kusanagi Izumo joined the class, and the three of them became friends, although Reisi and Mikoto was still practically inseparable.

Somewhere throughout fifth grade, it all started changing. Reisi started getting confused about his feelings. They had rounded the age of ten and the boys were starting to talk about girls. Izumo had a lot of friends outside thei little trio, so it was originally him, who brought the talk with him. Mikoto was quick to agree and they – especially Mikoto - soon started bragging about how many they had kissed. Of course, neither of them had kissed any, but Reisi didn’t know back then. Or maybe he did, deep down.

The problem was, that Reisi didn’t relate to their talk. He didn’t find Mikoto’s ‘indecent’ pictures that interesting.

He also started finding himself starring at Mikoto. He would get more sad than he should, when Mikoto would head straight home after school to see how his mother was doing. He would get jalous when Mikoto payed attention to someone else.

In the end, ten year old Munakata Reisi came to the conclution, that he was in love with the redheaded troublemaker. A child’s love, but he still started thinking something was wrong with him.

Through fifth grade he started making up excuses as to why he couldn’t bring Mikoto home or the other way around. Mikoto’s mother had been in and out of the hospital the past three years and when she died in the hospital bed, Mikoto too became distant and started avoiding Reisi aswell.

Then Totsuka Tatara started in the end of fifth grade. Reisi had first seen him as a harmless puppy, but somehow they didn’t really like eachother. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, they just didn’t seek out eachother’s company. Tatara became Mikoto and Izumo’s new friend and Reisi’s replacement.

By the end of sixth grade, Reisi no longer considered Mikoto to be his friend. They were both twelve years old and hadn’t spoken to eachother for months. When they parted ways the last day of elementary school, they shared a short awkward glance before they each went their own way.

It was first now, in second grade of highschool that Reisi could finally look himself in the mirror and say that he was no longer in love with Suoh Mikoto and believe it.

And now he was coming here. To Reisi’s school. For an entire week. And as if that wasn’t enough, he was to share room with Reisi, since the schools had looked at their records and decided that the best way to keep Mikoto from destroying the school was pairing him up with Reisi. To make Reisi babysit him. To make him stay by Reisi’s side “at all times”.

Reisi watched as an overly exited teenage boy, Totsuka Tatara, jumped out of the bus, closely followed by a yawning Mikoto and a slightly more composed Izumo.

“Look, King, there’s Munakata!” exclaimed Tatara. Reisi frowned slightly at the lack of a honorific, but quickly let it fade into his typical emotionless expression.

He started walking towards them as Mikoto made an uninterested noise and went to help Izumo get their bags. Tatara smiled widely and followed.

Reisi waited a few meters away until they all had their bags. The headmaster started moving them all inside and the arrivals started walking inside to meet their hosts.

“Suoh, this way.” When they became friends, Mikoto had refused to use Reisi’s given name, before Reisi used his. Reisi, being stubborn as he always was, in turn refused to use Mikoto’s before Mikoto used his. Neither of them wanted to lose that competition, so they had always used eachother’s familyname.

Reisi didn’t bother to see if he followed, but started walking off to a side entrance. It was closer to his room and neither of them had to be anywhere withing the next half an hour.

He opened the door and held it open for Mikoto, as the redhead walks inside. To Reisis’s surprice, he didn’t bring any bag, only a towel casually slung over his right shoulder.

“Where’s your bag?” Reisi asked as he followed Mikoto into the hallway, letting the door close behind him.

“Didn’t bring one,” sounded the answer. Mikoto rarely used more words than absolutely necersarry to get his point across. Most of the time he didn’t even use words.

“Why didn’t you bring a bag?” Reisi looked slightly annoyed at him. He liked having order in things. He liked planning. And here was Mikoto, who didn’t even take the time to pack a bag.

“Don’t need one.” Reisi sighed.

“Suit yourself.” He unlocked the door to his room and swung it open, allowing Mikoto to step inside. The room had two small closets, two beds, a large desk a bookshelf and a reather large bathroom with a shower, a toilet a sink and a vanity cupboard. Everything in the room was almost clinically clean, the floor, the bathroom and the tabletop being cleaned every day.

Reisi didn’t have a lot of things in there as he preferred to keep his stuff at home, but the five books in the bookshelf was accompanied by four boxes of jigsaw puzzles and a wooden carving of a bear, his brother bought him for his ninth birthday. The walls were bare and white except for a round clock, hanging over the window.

Usually they were two in a room, but Reisi’s roommate dropped out within the first week so Reisi was all alone. That also meant, that unlike the other visitors, Mikoto would get a proper bed to sleep in.

Mikoto looked around.

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” Reisi decided not to answer and pointed at the bed he made for Mikoto.

“You can sleep there. the packing list did say to bring your own sheets and pillow, but for some reason I doubted you would bring any.” Mikoto chuckled and dropped himself on the bed, not bothering to remove his shoes first. He folded his arms under his head, using them as a pillow and closed his eyes. Reisi sighed.

“If you sigh, the happiness escapes you.” It took a bit for Reisi to register, that Mikoto had used one of Reisi’s mother’s favorite lines.

“Is that so?” He asked with a raised eyebrow. The only answer he got was Mikoto’s slight snoring. He withstood the urge to sigh again and instead settled with shaking his head, as he sat down by the desk and found his math assignment in his homework folder. They didn't have to go to the evening gathering so he had half an hour to do his homework before ten pm, at which point they had to get ready to go to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Reisi’s alarm went off at half past six the next morning. He had finished his assignment before going to bed and hadn’t bothered waking Mikoto. He didn’t bring any sleeping clothes and Reisi really didn’t want to find out if it was because he planned to sleep in his underwear only. It took some time for him to fall asleep and he woke long before the alarm.

When it finally went off, Mikoto groaned annoyed and pulled the pillow over his head to block out the sound before falling back asleep. At least that’s what Reisi assumed he did, because he didn’t stay to find out. He simply put on his glasses before turning on the lights in the bathroom, bringing the clean uniform he laid out before going to bed.

He fought his eyes to stay open against the bright light. The caretaker had just changed the bulbs to some that in Reisi’s opinion made for better suns than lightbulbs.

He changed into the uniform. Though it was optional whether you wanted to wear the uniform or not, being a victim of bullying, Reisi preferred to slip into the anonymity of the school uniform.

The humming of the air cleaner sounded like half a thunderstorm in the morning silence, but somehow brushing his teeth made it sound less noisy. Until he stopped, of course.

He spat the mixture of salvia and toothpaste out in the sink, washing it away before meeting his own eyes in the mirror. He would often study his own face like that. Looking for the small signs of emotion and finding the best way to erase them so that he could achieve the exact expression he wanted. He had found that no matter how hard he tried, for some reason he couldn’t erase the emotion in his eyes.

He stared at them. At himself. He saw annoyance in there. A bit of self-pity, he felt dirty for even feeling. Why did Mikoto have to come? Why in his room? His private space, invaded by the one person he desperately tried and failed to forget?

Reisi sighed and grabbed the comb, styling his hair before walking out in the room, turning on the light. A muffled groan let him know that Mikoto was not in fact asleep and seemingly had removed the pillow, now regretting and moving it back to cover his eyes.

“You have a quarter before we have to be outside.” Mikoto hummed sleepily in response, before he threw the pillow away and sat up in one quick movement that made Reisi whish he hadn’t started thinking about the strength it would take Mikoto’s abdominal muscles to do that.

“ _What?!_ ” Reisi sighed.

“For the walk. All the scheduled activities were sent to you. You even went over it in class.”

“I didn’t! What walk! What time is-“ Mikoto stopped. “It’s not even seven am.. Are you insane?”

“Just get ready.” Surprisingly, the usual succinct Mikoto turned very talkative if his sleeping time was threatened, Reisi found.

“I am ready,” the redhead groaned. “Turn off the lights and let me sleep the last quarter.” Reisi sat down and looked at the schedule he and the headmaster had made for the week they had guests.

“Today are socializing activities. We will be walking to a lake where there will be held a few compititions. And we will be eating lunch there, so we have to make one.” Mikoto groaned annoyed. Reisi chose to ignore him and looked back at his papers. unlike the other students, he had two additional papers which held the information about the competitions. The students would be participating with their partner from the other school. Reisi wasn’t afraid to admit that he was in fact a competitive person. He wanted to excel at everything he did, something that of course wasn’t possible. Therefore, he had tried keeping down his competitive side and forced himself not to get his hopes up. The competitions were of diverse nature and he was not the best at most of them. Having the lazy Mikoto with him was most likely enough to ensure that they wouldn’t win a single one. On top of that, teamwork was essential if you wanted to win and Reisi did not in any way think he and Mikoto made even a decent team.

Reisi sat down, sighed and reached for the book on the table.

“Do you really find me that annoying?” Reisi’s hand paused midair, before he pulled it back to fold it in his lap on top of his crossed legs.

“Why do you ask that?” He looked directly at Mikoto, his face perfectly calm.

“You keep sighing like I’m just a bother to you.” Reisi looked at him a bit, before picking up the book and starting to read.

“You are.” As he spoke the words, he realized just how untrue they were. He realized how much he had missed Mikoto, and for some unknown reason, his relaxed, lazy nature.

With his eyes on the pages of the book, he didn’t see Mikoto’s reaction, something he regretted. The other said nothing for something that must have been ten seconds although it felt like ten minutes.

“Fine.” Reisi wasn’t sure what exactly he meant by that and he didn’t really have time to figure it out, because as soon as he had spoken the word, Mikoto got out of the and walked to the door. Having slept in his clothes, not even bothering to take off his shoes, Mikoto just grabbed his jacket and walked off.

“Oi! Where are you going?” Reisi practically jumped out of the chair and ran after him. Mikoto just walked down the hall and then Reisi noticed the two others who stood as a sillhuet agains the soft morning light from the glass door behind them.

“Suoh, we do not have time for this…” Mikoto didn’t respond and Totsuka and Izumo also seemed to  ignore him, Totsuka throwing an arm around Mikoto’s neck, smiling brightly at him.

Reisi furrowed his brow.

“Suoh!” If it wasn’t because he was pretty sure Mikoto was both stronger and heavier than himself, he would have dragged the redhead’s sorry ass back to the room. Unfortunately, while Reisi had spent his energy on school, Mikoto looked like he had taken up the hobby of weightlifting. Not that he was overly muscled; he was simply more toned than the average teenage boy. And certainly more so than Reisi.

The trio ignored him and went to sit down at the table at the end of the hallway. Mikoto sat down on the bench, leaning his back against the wall and lazily folding his arms behind his head before closing his eyes.

Totsuka started excitingly talking about the night, while Izumo opened the window beside the table and lit a cigarette. Reisi glared at him.

“No smoking on school grounds, please.” Mikoto opened one eye with a drawn out “Hmm?” while Izumo simply leaned an arm out of the window in a relaxed position, an amused smile playing on his lips.

“Don’t be such a goody two shoes, Reisi. Sit down and have a smoke.” Reisi glared at him.

“Munakata. And I will not indulge in such felonious affairs.” Izumo’s smile grew into an equally amused smirk.

“Felonious, huh?” He chuckled. “Goody two shoes indeed.” Mikoto chuckled at that and accepted an already lit cigarette from the blonde.

“Smoking is _not_ allowed on school grounds!” Reisi tried again, but with the same result: One more cigarette being lit.

“If it makes you happier, we’ll open a window,” said Izumo and reached out to do just that. Reisi glared at him, and if it wasn’t because of the following cleanup, the lack of a bucket and the fact that it was probably against the rules, he would have thrown a bucket of water on the lot of them to put out their smokes.

“It would not.” Izumo shrugged and drew back his hand, deciding that then there wouldn’t be a reason to open the window after all. Annoyed, Reisi looked at the clock on the wall. To prevent the students excusing being late with not being near a watch, the headmaster had put up watches in every room and in both ends of every hallway in the entire school. While the number of late students didn’t change by much, the excuses turned notably worse. Reisi had tried to convince the headmaster to buy a bell instead, but apparently four bells was way too expensive, which is why the headmaster bought 157 clocks. Needless to say, the master of bad excuses was indeed the headmaster himself.

“We will be late if we don’t go now.” Reisi said. Mikoto groaned annoyed and stood up, blowing smoke in Reisi’s face as he walked by. Reisi coughed and walked after him, absolutely not amused, although both Mikoto and Izumo seemed to find it laughable while Tatara simply followed with a smile playing on his lips.

“Suoh!” Once again, Reisi found himself ignored. He found it very difficult to keep himself pulled together and the slightly annoyed expression on his face as he was just about ready to jump in Mikoto’s face and show him what the son of two policemen could do. Well, a policeman and a policewoman. His mother was an inspector and his father a commissioner. His mother had taken to teaching him self-defense when she found out he was being bullied in elementary school, but he had never really used it, as he didn’t want to get in trouble for hurting the other kids.

The three others discarded of their cigarettes by throwing them on the floor and stepping on them to put them out before continuing to walk, leaving Reisi to pick up after them and throw the buds in the trashcan after making sure they were properly put out.

They walked to stand where the bus had dropped the visitors of the evening before. Reisi tried to explain to Mikoto that they had to stay together and line up in the numbers of their rooms, however it wasn’t before the headmaster called for order they found their place between the inhabitants of room thirty-five and thirty-seven.

I was a cold morning, but even though all the other students moved from one foot to the other or kicked at the ground in an attempt on staying warm, Mikoto just stood in his usual bored way, with his hands in his jacket pockets.

The headmaster explained that they were going to go for a walk around the school and then eat. Mikoto quickly found Izumo and Tatara again and the three walked besides  eachother the entire walk, leaving Reisi to walk on his own behind them.

He was surprised to find that they had kept a seat for him in the eating hall. They had even brought an extra cup to the table for him and someone had already filled it with tea. Reisis sat down when Izumo pulled out the chair for him to show him that yes, it actually was his seat.

The beginning of the breakfast went fine. They each concentrated on their own food and for a while it was calm. Reisi’s calmed down, convincing himself that they would behave from now on. Something, he quickly came to regret.

It was Mikoto who started it, throwing some of his rice porridge at Tatara. Tatara was quick to retaliate and also sent some in Izumo’s direction to get him to join. Soon the table had become a warzone.

“Stop it!” They, of course, ignored him. “Suoh! Stop it now!” It continued. A quick glance at the teacher’s table told Reisi that they hadn’t yet noticed, but it was only a matter of time before…

His stream of thought was abruptly brought to a stop, as a particular sticky spoonful of porridge found itself sticking to the left side of Reisi’s face. A laughter from across form him told him exactly whose spoon it had come from and left little doubt as to whether it was intentional or not.

Reisi slowly turned his head to face Mikoto who had already sent a new spoonful flying towards Izumo. The redhead seemed completely unfazed by the fatal glare Reisi sent him and continue his participation in the food war.

Reisi grabbed a paper napkin and cleaned his face before he grabbed his fork, leaned over and bringing it down, the burying the fork’s teeth in the wooden surface of the table right between Mikoto’s middle and ring fingers.

The table fell silent as they starred at Reisi in shock. Reisi used this to get his point across as he now had their full attention and they were less likely to simply ignore him.

“Suoh Mikoto. It may interest you to learn, that you have in fact reached the physical age of sixteen, so I suggest that you stop acting like a two year old so you might actually live past 24. If you also wish to leave here with ten fingers and two functioning hands, I suggest you do as you are told. Have I made myself clear or shall I say it again in a language I know you will understand?" Mikoto was silent a bit while his starteled expression changed into that of bored amusement.

“I think you already have.” He nodded towards the fork between his fingers.

“Good.” Reisi pulled the fork out of the table with a dull sound as the wooden surface released the utensil. He was slightly surprised at how deep it had gone and realized that what he had thought to be a well thought out plan to get his childhood friend to behave, in reality had been a chance for him to let out a small bit of the frustration he had let build up since the mentioned arrived.

He inwardly cursed himself for so easily losing his grip on himself as soon as the red head was near, but none of it showed on his emotionless face, as he simply returned to his eating. While his eyes were trained on his food, he listened closely to find out, if the three others were truly done with the fooling around. Much to his surprise, when he finally lifted his gaze, Mikoto, Izumo and Tatara was indeed eating nicely. If it wasn’t for the small bits of food on the table and on their clothes aswell as the pieces of porridge and partially dissolved bread swimming around in their drinking glasses, no one would have thought they had been throwing around with it mere seconds ago.

Reisi sighed internally, although as always, his expressionless outer remained unaltered. He shot a quick glance at the teacher’s table, but apart from the headmaster’s smug smile, nothing seemed to suggest that they had noticed at all.

Though Reisi was pretty sure he knew who would be tasked with cleaning the eating hall that day.


	3. Chapter 3

“Okay everyone, you own a store that sells candy. In the US, they have come up with a new candy bar, that everyone loves and that everyone has heard off, however, it has not yet been sold in Japan. The company that makes the candy bar is looking to sell it to candy stores like your own in Japan.

Production & shipping costs per candy bar: 2

Minimal needed income cper bar: 5

How do you make the most money per bar.”

“Sell it for seven?” asked Izumo.

“If you sell it for seven, you only reach the minimal income.”

“Then what do you propose, genius?”

“Buy it for two, then pay the company three more per bar so you buy it for five, using the additional three to bribe the company into selling the bar to the other stores for a minimum of fifteen. Assuming the other stores has to meet the same amount of income as a minimum, they will then sell the bar for 20. Then our store sell one for, say, nineteen and two for twenty. Then the customers think they get two for the value of one and they will choose our store, while we make fifteen every time a customer buys two.”  
“And fourteen if they buy one.” said Seri.

“Yes, well the only people who are going to buy only one are those who are either one short of twenty or watching their health by counting calories, or generally unintelligent.”

“What if they just don’t want two?” asked Tatara.

“Then smart people would still buy two and save the other for when they want it, instead of paying eighteen more.”

“If they did that, though, we would make twenty eight.” Pondered Seri.

“We would, but how will you trick them into doing that?”

“Write ‘2 for 20’ so small you almost can’t see it? After all, it is only one we loose if they don’t come back.” Izumo nodded eagerly.

“Exactly!” Reisi shook his head.

“Maybe, but one _what_? We don’t know. If we’re dealing with bananas or diamonds, and losing one diamond each time could prove to be an especially expensive deal since it would only take five for us to not just loose five diamonds, but also another candy bar which could be fourteen diamonds.” Not that it would have made a difference if it were bananas, but Reisi had found that the larger the value, the easier it was for people to understand.

Seri seemed to think for a bit.

“Yeah, you’re right as always.” She flattered and smiled at Reisi. Reisi quickly fixed his glasses before looking back down at the paper.

Izumo looked from one to the other, which Reisi of co urse pretended not to notice. He had noticed that the boy had hardly even looked away from the beautiful young woman which Reisi had to admit he understood. Awashima Seri was a very attractive young girl and interest in learning as well as her quick wit were both things Reisi appreciated in her. That and her commenting the films they watched together when they both had spare time.

She would often comment of the uselessness of certain characters and wonder out loud how much easier it would have for the films hero if the character had just been killed.

While Reisi did find her musings amusing, he himself refused to call a hero a hero, if any of the people he or she needed to save didn’t make it. If you couldn’t save all the people you are supposed to save, you are just an average person.

“How could we then do it?” asked Totsuka.

“If a hundred costumers buy two, we’d make 1500,” said Mikoto. Reisi turned a raised eyebrow at him.  
“You just figured that out yourself, did you?” Mikoto rolled his eyes and ignored him.

In the end they decided to just let the customers be customers and not try to trick them. Thinking a bit, Reisi decided that as the teacher hadn’t said the company couldn’t be bribed, there was really no reason to spend time figuring out a secondary strategy.

He was just about to let the teacher know they finished, when Mikoto opened his mouth.

“A woman.” They all looked at him.

“What?”

“A woman?”

“Yes we heard you the first time, what do you mean by that?” Mikoto shrugged.

“Make a woman sell the bars.” Reisi looked at him.

“What good will that do?”

“A woman can be payed less and no one bats an eye. We’ll still have to pay whoever’s selling it anyway, so to save more money, all we gotta to is put a woman in the shop.” Seri nodded thoughtfully.

“That is actually clever.”

“Not to mention sexist.” Reisi added. Mikoto shrugged.

“The girl approved.” He argued. Reisi glared at him.

“I will not participate in anything that pays differently based on the employees sex.” Mikoto sighed.

“It’s play-pretend. But suit yourself.” Mikoto leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest and looked at Reisi with a challenging look. Reisi furrowed his brow, unsure of what exactly he was challenging him to do. He had found that reading Mikoto wasn’t as easy as it should be. With the others he could read their feelings in their eyes and their body language and posture, but it seemed that unless he was angry, Mikoto always carried himself the same way and the lazy droop to his eyes as well as the beautiful colo… Hang on there a moment, you could describe Mikoto many ways, but beautiful wouldn’t be the first thing that came to mind! Though, Reisi had to admit, maybe the color of his eyes were.

Anyway, Mikoto’s eyes put Reisi off. Therefore, Reisi would try to avoid them and that left him with the slouchy, lazy and disrespectful posture and the small grunts and huffs of air that seemed to be the redhead’s favorite mean of communication. All things he didn’t know what to make off. And he hated it.

“Something on my face?” Mikoto smirked like he just won a bet or something and Reisi realized he’d been starring with the slightly annoyed expression.

“Thought I saw some trash, but I realize it is simply the way your face is put together.” The shocked expression on Seri’s face, as well as the fact that he instantly regretted it, told him that he had gone too far. He had not been provoked and he hated to realize that he had lashed out for no reason.

But now it was said and he was definitely not going to apologize to Suoh Mikoto. This time.

“Whatever.” Reisi couldn’t make out whether that meant he didn’t care of if he was actually hurt.

Reisi sighed.

“Where were we?” Seri regarded him with an interested look, shot Mikoto a quick glance before looking at the paper.

“A female shopkeeper.” Reisi sighed again.

“Fine.” Raising his hand to let the teacher know they were done, he forgot to keep an eye on Mikoto, and before he knew, the redhead had snatched the paper and walked up to the teacher, put it in front of her and then he walked out of the classroom.

“Suoh!” Reisi practically jumped out of the chair and hurried after him out in the hallway.

“Suoh! Where are you going?!” Mikoto looked at him and yawned before pointing at the door to the toilet with a thumb over his shoulder.

“Gotta take a shit.” Reisi furrowed his brow annoyed.

“Then say it next time instead of just disappearing!” Mikoto looked at him with another one of his unreadable expressions before lifting a han and pressing the thumb to Reisi’s forehead.

“Makes you look like you’re twen’y.” Before Reisi could answer, Mikoto had already crossed the last few meters of floor to the bathroom door.

“Oi, Suoh!” Mikoto ignored him and locked the door as he slipped inside.

 

Mikoto didn’t return to class, and while they won the competition, Reisi was beyond annoyed as he made his way to his room, only to find Mikoto sprawled out on the bed with his nose in a magazine with partially naked women on the cover.

Reisi snatched the magazine out of his hands.

“Why didn’t you return to class?!” Mikoto had the audacity to look annoyed.

“Didn’t want to. Give that back!” He reached out for it, but Reisi snatched it away again.

“Where did you even get this?! You didn’t bring anything but a towel!” Mikoto looked at him a bit before smirking.

“It was in your closet.” Reisi looked confused a bit before blushing when he realized it was the magazine his brother had given him and instead of throwing it out or give it away he had just put it in the closet because it was a gift.

Mikoto chuckled at his expression.

A quick knock on the door had Reisi flinch, but before he could put the magazine away, Seri entered with Izumo and Tatara right behind her.

She stopped and looked from one to the other and then at the magazine in Reisi’s hand.

“Are we interrupting something?” Reisi had often told Seri to just walk in if she wanted to visit, as he lived alone and never minded her company, but at the moment he regretted it a lot. Especially since the other two were there.

Reisi stood up straight and threw the magazine back at Mikoto who caught it with a smirk.

“No. Not at all. Come on in.” Seri looked at them both once again before walking in, sitting down on Reisi’s bed.

“We have the afternoon off to ‘mingle’.” She said.


	4. Chapter 4

‘Mingle’ as it turned out, meant people suddenly believing it was okay for them to simply wander into places it wasn’t before. Places such as Reisi’s room.  
At first it wasn’t bad. Izumo and Tatara joined Seri on Reisi’s bed. It wasn’t long before Tatara started a passionate conversation about bees and how they were nice to film. This led him to another, perhaps even more passionate conversation about filming. Well, conversation may not be the right word, as he did the most of the talking and no-one really listened. Seri and Izumo smiled and nodded but as soon as Tatara wasn’t paying close attention, they were… well, to Reisi it looked like they were having a conversation by simply looking at each other.  
Of course, Reisi was also guilty of not paying attention to Tatara’s enthusiastic talking. He was too busy trying not to think about the fact that Mikoto was casually looking through the magazine as if they weren’t there.  
Reisi had a sneaking suspicion that he was only doing it to get on his nerves.  
“Mikoto, put it away will you? We are in the presence of a lady.” Izumo suddenly spoke, his voice calm and patient as if he was trying to convince a child that no, throwing mud on the neighbor is not a good idea.  
Mikoto grunted and stuck the magazine under his pillow before sitting up and leaning back against the wall, looking at Tatara who didn’t look all to pleased with being interrupted.  
“What were you saying about the sky in the city?” Mikoto asked, and Tatara’s face lit up as he once again started talking about filming. Reisi looked at Mikoto, then at Tatara with something akin to shock because he had realized two things.  
One: Mikoto had indeed been looking at the magazine to get on Reisi’s nerves.  
Two: Somehow, some way, Mikoto had suddenly become the most polite and considerate person in the entire room.  
And Reisi was not happy with either of those facts.  
As he looked back at Mikoto, he found his golden eyes staring back at him with an emotion he couldn’t read. Unsure of what to do with that, and unwilling to quickly advert his eyes like a crushing teenager, he opted for glaring at him instead. Mikoto responded by smirking lazily, which only served to further annoy Reisi.  
Then all hell broke loose. And it all started with a knock on the door.  
Thankful for the excuse it gave him to look away from Mikoto, he walked over to open the door only to find a blond boy accompanied by a pink haired girl and a black haired boy. The latter of whom was seemingly cosplaying as a samurai dressed as a youth who didn’t know how to button the top buttons of his shirt or that neck ties were supposed to be tight.  
“Can I help you?” Reisi asked. The blond haired boy whose hair was more white than blond, flashed him a smile as if he had never heard of terrible things such as Suoh Mikoto or the plague.  
“May we come in?” he asked, the pink haired girl meowed and the black haired boy glared half-heartedly at her. Before Reisi could answer, however, the pink cat walked past him. Reisi watched with astonishment at her rudeness. She walked straight up to Mikoto, who made a questioning sound which was completely ignored as she reached out and tugged at antennae resembling pieces of hair hanging down into his face.  
“Oi, cat, don’t do that!” The black haired samurai hurried over to her and pulled her away. She hissed at him.  
“Thank you kindly for your hospitality.” The whitehaired boy told Reisi as he walked past him to join his friends. With a sigh, Reisi closed the door and walked back to lean against his desk.  
Mikoto had gone back to pretending to be asleep and everyone seemed to think the room now belonged to them, the pink-haired girl going as far as to going through Reisi’s belongings. And when Awashima attempted to protect what little remained of his privacy by snatching his hair products away from her, Reisi had had enough. Quietly and unnoticed, he slipped past the black-haired boy, grabbed his jacket and disappeared out the door. He then turned down the hallway, out the school’s main entrance and continued across the parking lot, still in the belief that his escape had gone unnoticed.  
He walked with long strides, hands in his pockets, eyes on the ground while analyzing the absurd situation he had suddenly found himself in a few seconds ago.  
“Yo.” The monotone voice startled the living daylight out of Reisi, so much so that he thought he might have let out a squeal. He turned to glare at Mikoto who just shot him a lazy grin.  
“Do not ever sneak up on me again!” Reisi hissed. Mikoto shrugged his shoulders.  
“S not my fault you didn’t hear me runnin’ up on you.” Reisi attempted to glare harder, then opted for simply looking straight ahead and walking faster, ignoring Mikoto.  
“Oi… M’nakata.”  
Reisi grit his teeth.  
“What is it, Suoh?”  
Mikoto didn’t answer. He simply held out a lit cigarette towards Reisi. Offended, Reisi slapped his hand away.  
“’ll calm you down.” Mikoto explained as he held the cigarette out to him again.  
“I am calm.” Reisi said, knowing his face would indeed be calm.  
“Sure. Like you were calm and not at all crying because you didn’t understand how it floated and no-one was willing to explain it to you.”  
It was a challenge. Reisi knew it. It was also beyond stupid. Reisi knew that too. But just like he had influenced Mikoto, Mikoto had always been good at talking Reisi into things. Sometimes without saying a word at all.  
With an annoyed movement, Reisi took the cigarette. He imagined it would be appalling and absolutely vile. And it was. Though somehow, it was so much worse than he imagined.  
As the smoke filled his lungs, he started coughing. More and more, the taste and stench of the smoke everywhere as he breathed in desperately in between coughs.  
“S pretty shit the first time. Just keep at it. You’ll understand.”  
The implication that there might be something to understand and the challenge underlying the words had him try again. He coughed more, starting to feel light headed and dizzy. Mikoto lit his own cigarette and blew smoke into the sky like smoking was the simplest thing and not the most vile action Reisi had ever attempted. Mikoto did it again, closing his eyes and tilting his head back as he slowly let the smoke out of his lungs.  
Reisi tried again and to his horror, he found it had somehow become easier. He was still coughing, but he no longer felt like he was going to suffocate.  
His head still felt like it was going to float right of his shoulders and he was still dizzy and nauseous. But there was also a rush. And now Reisi did think he understood.  
When the cigarette burned as far down as he felt comfortable letting it, Reisi knelt and put it out on the ground before putting it in his pocket to throw it out as soon as he came near a trash can. Mikoto, on the other hand, simply threw it on the ground and seemed content to just let it lie there.  
“You’ll start a fire some day.” Reisi said, his voice rougher than usual. Mikoto’s golden eyes stared intensely at him, and Reisi wondered if he already had. Then Mikoto shrugged and started walking back to the school.


End file.
